


Taking One Down

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So, you had a bad day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking One Down

"So, you had a bad day."

Rodney gave a wordless snarl that reminded John poignantly of a freshly caught bear: anything within shredding distance would be, well, _shredded_.

"Check that. You're _having_ a bad day."

Rodney wasn't scary all that often. The man played with materials that made nuclear bombs as quaint as Molotov cocktails—and hey, funny how that didn't make those damned cocktails any less dangerous, just a whole lot more _quaint_ —and John had never once been scared of Rodney, of the power that bent and gave only at Rodney's potentially-precarious direction.

The look Rodney tossed over his shoulder was terrifying. Clearly, this was a man pushed past all rational endurance. Shredding was no longer an option: incineration by the eyes was up next.

"Okay then," John said and offered a jaunty wave.

He was a damned pilot: laughing in the face of certain death was the only drug he'd ever needed.

* * *

It took him almost an hour to get everything he needed. He could've been faster, of course, but he figured thorough preparation was preferable to doing something quick and half-assed and paying for it later, probably in blood. Rodney had been nearly silent in his frustration and upset, which was never ever a good sign. It'd become Atlantis' unofficial guide for the care and keeping of one Rodney McKay: so long as he was channeling his pain, or ire, or anything else into an unceasing flow of words, than things were okay. Status quo. All the vents were open.

When Rodney went quiet, pressure started to build. Pressure akin to the monumental planetary shifts that had created _Krakatoa_.

Oh, yeah, John was totally okay with spending a little more time to do it right, rather than risk inadvertently blowing half of Atlantis because he didn't.

Who the hell knew what Rodney was really working on at any given time, anyway? John didn't. And he wasn't going to chance 'blowing' being strictly metaphorical.

Both would be just as difficult to clean up.

Rodney was still in his lab when John arrived back, giving up his impression of a furious bear for some kind of large, bristling spider. Each bunch and shift of his shoulders had John's gut going icier and tighter, reacting to the low level of menace he knew was unconscious. Rodney's body had built up its own defenses for that precocious mind, and his stance was a clear shout to _stay away, stay the hell away right now_: tight, tense, and so full of loathing anticipation that it felt like a punch.

And the message implicit like razor blades in apples, that anyone foolish enough to try and play bait the physicist was going to regret it. For a _really long time_.

John had been on the receiving end of a few of those moods. He wasn't anxious to repeat the experience. Ever.

Frankly, he'd rather take on a Hiver, unarmed. It'd be quicker, at least.

"Hey, McKay," he blathered, grinning like no, he wasn't at all a fly crawling right into somebody's parlor. "Got you dinner. Beef stew?"

Rodney tossed a beady, malevolent glare over his shoulder and didn't leave his console.

John ignored that, setting up a dinner full of beef stew and the thick, eggy noodles Rodney preferred with it, a nice, crusty bread that smelled almost as heavenly as the stew, a few other side-dishes specifically chosen to tempt Rodney, and a dessert left covered in its black case.

Best not to give everything away at once.

"So, I talked to Zelenka. He mentioned a couple of things that'd happened today." None of them were enough to push Rodney this far on their own, but it was never _just_ issues with the science department. No, Rodney worked three additional jobs beyond the one they paid him for, and sometimes, people forgot that. "And Teyla mentioned that you should've gone to the infirmary and didn't. Corporal Stevens said you never showed up at the mess, too, and when he tried to stop by you turned him away."

Stevens was a good kid. He'd learned pretty early on what was just low-level froth kicked up from normal tides, and what was the draw-back before a tsunami. He'd also learned to whom it should be mentioned.

"Did Lorne tell you what he found on his last off-world trip? I know it's not much, but he's pretty sure it looks kinda like the specs for cold fusion. I know, not so important now that we've got ZPM's, but hey, it's interesting, right? He found it at that outpost with Zelenka, I know he must've told you about it."

Slowly, so slowly it felt like Rodney had sequestered himself in his own time-dilation bubble, Rodney turned and headed for the table where John was nibbling on his own dinner (his second). It was hard not to cheer when Rodney finally sat down, but his face—inked with heavy lines and so full of negative emotions that it was impossible to pick just one—kept John cheerfully babbling.

The first few bites disappeared with the same slowness. But the fifth came a lot faster than the fourth, and the tenth—Rodney's found the corn-bread John had sneaked as well as the roll everyone had been given—went maybe as much as half as fast as it would've normally been eaten.

John counted that as a victory and tried to steal a bite of peach.

Quick reflexes were all that saved him from tines embedded all the way to bone.

"Would a blow job make you less cranky?" John snapped. "Because we could go right here."

Rodney blinked, face going blank with surprise and finally— _finally_ —life sparked in his eyes and there was a blessedly familiar whine as everything booted back up to normal speeds.

"You'd really do that?" Rodney asked. The peaches disappeared with alacrity. "Right here?"

"Well, I was figuring I'd be bent over a table or something once you'd eaten," John shrugged. It was easy to tuck his leg in between Rodney's, ankles pressed together. Childish, yeah, but easy. Nice. "We could probably do both, if you wanted."

Rodney gave him an owlish look, then shook his head. "No, I don't want to have to explain to anyone else why you're limping. You make up shitty excuses, for a closeted gay man."

Ouch. Low blow, but John just rolled with it; it wasn't anywhere near as bad as he'd expected. "Thanks, Rodney," he grinned, showing off the food he knew he had stuck in his teeth. "You're all heart, for a gay man who, oh, what's this? Doesn't really want anyone else to know about it."

Rodney harrumphed. "I'm bi, idiot, keep it straight." Then said, "It wasn't—anything. I just woke up, and."

John lifted the cover off the desert plate, exposing freshly made brownies dripping with fudge, a little bit of whipped cream crinkling at the edges, and a paint-brush. He got his shirt off before Rodney stopped staring, mouth-open.

"I know," he said, standing so he could give Rodney a short kiss. "I kinda figured. You slept like shit last night."

"How—how'd you know that?" Surprising Rodney was one of the highlights of working with him. He looked so damned _amazed_ , childishly wanting to know how, and how come, and why, and all of it right then. It was like always grabbing the brass ring.

John stole another kiss. "Experience, idiot. Even I can spot patterns.” Like the ones that cropped up every time John went off-world for a night, and Rodney didn’t. “Now, are we sharing, or do you want to write up that equation you said would work better in chocolate?"

It was an easy out, a way to let both of them work off a little stress—John had woken up pretty damned cranky himself—but instead of reacting with a familiarly grudging glee, Rodney put both hands on John's hips, pulling him up and close so Rodney could bury his head in John's stomach.

Oh. Okay then. So it was _that_ kind of bad mood. Well, John could work with that, too, cupping the back of Rodney's neck to rub away the sweat, tracing over the steadily decreasing thump of his veins. It felt strange since Rodney was fully dressed, still, but John wasn't cold and even if he was, Rodney's forehead was warm, if a little clammy, and really, he'd never understood why little things like this were better than sex, better than all the conversations he'd never really wanted to have.

Rodney was a surprisingly good teacher.

"Okay," Rodney said eventually. "Tell me you have more lube because chocolate is very versatile, yes, but the thought of that is just disgusting.”

John laughed, vibrating against Rodney’s nose, and said, “Took care of that already. Dumb-ass. Didn’t you know I used to be a boy scout?”


End file.
